Page 145 of Edge of the Wild

Oddmar said, “Last summer, the Úlfheðnar raided our lands. Burned my longhouse, killed my son and took my daughter captive.” His large, rough hands curled to fists, knuckles cracking. He bared his gapped teeth as he recalled it. “It was Ormr, Ragnar’s general who led it. It was him who took my daughter for himself.”

Beside him, Yngvi, the boy who’d been caught sneaking into Aeres, swallowed hard and looked away, blinking quickly.

“I wanted revenge,” Oddmarr said, “I swore it.”

“Any man would,” Erik said, noncommittal. He couldn’t believe this turn of events – but neither would he have believed his cousin capable of such treachery before the last forty-eight hours. Traitors, and dragons, and wights. He supposed anything was possible.

“My son, though.” Oddmarr laid an unmistakably proud hand on his Yngvi’s shoulder. “He wanted us to be smart – to not get killed in open warfare. And so he went to slay Ormr in the dark of night, to steal his sister back.”

“What happened?”

Yngvi swallowed hard, and when he met Erik’s gaze, his eyes were as tortured and haunted as they’d been in that dungeon cell where he’d laid all his ills at Erik’s feet. “I got caught. My sister – my sister was already dead.”

“We arranged a meeting,” Oddmarr said.

Erik said, “A hostage negotiation.”

“What was I to do?” Oddmarr blustered. “My only living son? I couldn’t afford pride in that moment.”

“No, you’re right,” Erik said. “I’d have done the same.”

“I got Yngvi back, but Ragnar – oh, that devil, he’s always so full ofwords. They pour out of him like bile. He had this great story about how the raid hadn’t been his idea – how he hadn’t wanted to do it. Ormr he promised to kill for overstepping, but he said he had to do it. That he had orders from you to weaken the other clans.”

“And you’ve always hated me and mine,” Erik said, grimly, “so you believed him.”

“He said you were in league with the South! That their armies were coming up, and that you wanted us all gone. You’d only spare him because he was your blood, but he didn’t believe that. He was only going along with it because he was scared.”

“And he was lying.”

“I know that now.” Oddmarr shook his head, disgusted with himself. He spat on the snow. “Fuck him. Fuck him and his mother and his whole bloody family.”

“When did you realize the truth?”

“The Ákafamaðr and the Úlfheðnar attacked your lords in force. Dreki Hörgr turned into a warzone – and then those purple bastards showed up.”

Erik’s stomach clenched tight. “Are any of my men left alive?”

“Yes. They’re good fighters. Some fell, though.”

“What of the other clans?”

“Most scattered. Some joined up with Ragnar. They’re marching south. On Aeretoll.”

Revna. Rune. Bjorn. Tessa.

He had to focus.

“How – how did you know to look for us?”

Yngvi nodded toward the dragon – Percy – where he was snuffling animatedly at the snow like a dog following a scent. “I saw it. Him. I saw him fly over, off to the mountains, screaming, like.”

A thought dawned. “It wasn’t your men who attacked us on the road. With the shamans.”

“No,” Oddmarr said. “They only wanted to make it look that way.”

“I just thought,” Yngvi said, “that if they’d killed you, they would have bragged about it. They would have shown us your head. I found a trail up the hill, and I told my father.”

Oddmarr puffed out his chest. “We’ve come to get you safely down the mountain, and then I want to be the one to kill Ragnar myself.”

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